The Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (Business Coordinating Council), known as the CCE, and the Business Association of the city hold bimonthly meetings in which they propose and discuss ideas or projects to benefit San Miguel de Allende, always inviting a different guest, such as a painter, an activist, a poet, people who with their talent, see for the good of San Miguel. The meetings are attended by businessmen from San Miguel, Veracruz, CDMX, and foreigners seeking the common good.

For example, approximately eight years ago, the CCE proposed expanding the city’s wine industry. This initiative was taken forward at that time by many businessmen who were members of the council and the association. Today we can see more than 20 vineyards located around the city that already produce their own brand, and San Miguel has become the most important wine region in the country. (Ricardo Garrido, president of the CCE, has even brought wine he makes in a small cellar into meetings for tasting. In spite of it being a homemade wine, its several important chemical processes have made it the wine par excellence of the bimonthly meetings of the businessmen.)

This Monday, April 23rd, a meeting was held at the Ventanas Golf Club to celebrate a very different project, however still an example of entrepreneurial talent from San Miguel: The group came together to celebrate Francisco Martínez, who at 22 years of age has already presented himself as a novillero (apprentice bullfighter) in Plaza México, Plaza Aguascalientes for the Feria de San Marcos and Plaza Guadalajara, and has more than 40 successful bullfights under his belt. The businessmen in this group have been supporting his career, sponsoring the purchase of his costumes and his training with the bullfighter Alejandro del Olivar. “Together they have done a great job,” said Ricardo Garrido, adding that all the businessmen feel proud of the great bullfighter that Martínez is becoming.

Garrido also explained that Francisco, like good wines, needs to mature in order to become a true bullfighter, but he assures us that he is on an excellent path.

While sponsoring a bullfighter might seem quite different from expanding the wine industry in San Miguel, the businessmen feel they are achieving their goal of furthering the common good: They consider themselves to be business sponsors who want to see the dream of young men and women from San Miguel come true, “because just as San Miguel is the best city in the world, we also want to have the best bullfighter in the world,” Garrido added.